Epson Perfection V100 scanner

[Guest]

My operating system is Windows Vista on a new Dell XPS 6600. I purchased an
Epson Perfection V100 flatbed scanner and downloaded and installed the Vista
drivers from the Epson website. The scanner works but very often it loses
communication before the scan begins and while it reports it is warming up.
I then must unplug the USB connection and plug it back in for communication
to occur. Any ideas on how to remedy this? This problem has become a real
irritant. Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[Cari \(MS-MVP\)]

Are the USB ports set to 'sleep' when not in use to save power? (Device
Manager, Hardware, Universal Serial Bus Controllers.... click on each one in
turn and check from the Power tab.

 

[Guest]

I checked and found that all have sleep enabled. I found just one that
mentioned the scanner so unchecked the box allowing sleep to save power. Do
I need to do the same with any of the others or should turning off just the
one hopefully solve the problem? Will this affect the computer being able to
sleep?

 

[Guest]

It turns out that disabling the suspend settings for the USB ports does not
seem to make a difference. The scanner loses communication before starting
the scan, while warming up, or even reports that it is scanning when it
isn't. I am beginning to wonder if the Epson driver has issues. What say
you? Thanks for the reply you gave me and any future reply you might have.

 

[Cari \(MS-MVP\)]

First thing to try is a new USB cable. Second route might be a new (and
more powerful) PSU.

 

[Guest]

I think I found the problem. The port that was being used had USB printing
support listed first and the scanner listed second. When I switched the
scanner to a different port the problem appears to have disappeared. When I
tried using the problem port with a flash (thumb) drive it also had problems
being recognized. Other ports do not seem to have that problem. I thank you
for your timely help and good suggestions. Events like this are certainly
frustrating, but that is how learning takes place and I have learned a few
things.

 

[Cari \(MS-MVP\)]

Excellent.. and you've saved the cost of a new scanner!